


Stranger from a Strange Land

by beetle



Category: Welsh Mythology
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, M/M, Sidhe, Wild Hunt, faery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-05 01:23:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1800283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompt(s): Gwynn ap Nudd. I borrowed heavily from themes in Stephen King’s The Gunslinger for this one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Notes/Warnings: See archive warnings.

He caught my eye because he didn’t ride into town . . . he _walked_ in, an eagle owl on his shoulder and a white hound at his heel.

The hound was as white as the man, himself, was black—his skin was darker than any I’d ever seen, even darker than old Jaime Juarez at the general store. Where Jaime was the color of rich, dark chocolate, this man, this stranger, was the color of four a.m. Wherever he was from, I knew, it was about as far from Delver’s Gulch as a body could get.

But he came dressed like any local outrider, in dusty jeans, broken boots, a plain brown vest, and a chambray work-shirt that might once have been blue, but was now a soft, faded gun-metal from repeated washings and long hours in the sun. On his head was a dark felt Stetson Revenger with a short crown.

Slung low on his narrow hips were crisscrossed gun belts—each bearing a large, old-style revolver—cartridges winking and flashing like sparks in the last of the sunset.

The last reputable shops were closing up for the day, and Madam Maeve’s Hurdy-Gurdy Saloon was just getting going for the evening. I was sweeping up outside when I looked down the street and saw him enter the town proper: a tall, slim, backlit figure, striding evenly down Main Street—the only street—as if unrushed and unworried. As if the horrors that routinely roam the Wilderness beyond the Settlements wouldn’t and couldn’t possibly frighten him into scurrying as quickly into the light and relative safety of the first Settlement one would encounter fresh out of the Wilderness.

(Well, it’s the first if, like him, one is coming in  _from_  the Wildnerness. If one is coming from the  _Settled Lands_ , then our town is the last one butting the Wild Places where only the mad, the desperate, and the foolhardy venture alone.)

He ambled past the startled folk who were either in a rush to roll up their bit of sidewalk or on their way to the place they’d be from in the morning, seeming not to notice the surprised, fearing eyes on him. Several of the more superstitious—Bertina Goodlot, the preacher’s sister—among them forked the evil eye at him as he went by. He paid them no mind, and continued up the middle of the wide street, rolling a cigarette with graceful, unhurried fluidity as he went.

By the time he reached the saloon, where I was doing less sweeping and more leaning on my broom and watching him approach, he had the cigarette rolled and lit. He stopped and the dog stopped with him, sitting as soberly and ponderously as a judge. Its dark eyes rested on me far too intelligently for any dog I’d ever come across, and for a moment  _I_  had to fight the urge to send the evil-eye its way.

I focused, instead, on the stranger, who looked up at the sign above the door, then down at me. Then up at the sign then back down at me. Finally, he smiled, smoke curling from his full mouth like that of a lazing dragon. On his shoulder, the owl stared inscrutably past me and into the Hurdy-Gurdy.

“Good evening,” the stranger said in a low, musical lilt that rolled through me like distant thunder. I merely gaped at him for so long that his brow furrowed and his smile changed to one that was gentle and patient. “Are you slow, then, lad?”

“What?” I blushed and laughed nervously. “Er, no. At least, I don’t think so.”

The smile lost its condescending gentleness and became that lazy dragon’s grin once more, this time with a flash of white, white teeth. He looked me over, down then up, taking his own time in doing it, before meeting my eyes again. By this point, I was so flushed I no doubt looked like an overgrown beet.

“My apologies,” he said, taking another drag off his cigarette. The smoke he exhaled was sweet and faintly musky—different from the harsh, green-dank scent of tobacco grown around here. In fact, I was certain it  _wasn’t tobacco_  . . . not exactly . . . but what it was, I couldn’t have said, then. “Are you the proprietor of this establishment?”

I blinked. “Me?” I squeaked, laughing again. The stranger’s dark brows rose fractionally and I cleared my throat, looking away—at the hound, which still sat patiently, watching me, then at the owl, which had closed its eyes. “No, I just, ah, clean up and do the scut-work, around here. The owner’s Madam Maeve.”

“Hmm.” The stranger sighed smoke and gave me another once over, this one considering. “Perhaps you might be able to help me, anyway.”

I sketched an only slightly ironic half-bow. “Your servant, sir.”

The stranger laughed. “Such pretty manners! Certainly prettier than those of your countrymen,” he murmured, glancing back the way he’d come. It seemed like half the town had stopped what they were doing or come out to watch us talk. I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah, well, we don’t get a lot of folks coming in from the Wilderness. At least not sane ones.”

“Who says I’m sane?” The stranger snorted and I gave  _him_  a once over. His face was saturnine and strong—stubborn and stark. He was clean-shaven, square of jaw, and bore the highest, sharpest bone-structure I’d ever seen. Overall, there was a keenness about him. He was built like a blade, lean and vaguely deadly-looking. The only thing about him that didn’t speak of this dangerous keenness was the calm, clear eyes that regarded me with such naked curiosity. I flushed again under their directness.

“ _Sane-seeming_ ,” I corrected myself. “Not to mention clean and unmarked. And still able to make it past the town-Wards.”

“I’m no wight,” the stranger said softly, his dark, dark eyes scanning my face and narrowing. “Nor am I a spirit to be repelled by Carlin mischief or hedge-witch juju . . . but tell me: What’s your name, lad?”

“Edric,” I replied immediately, bowing again for some reason, this time with no irony in sight. “Edric Forester. And you are—?”

“ _Ap Nuada_ , I’m called . . . for my father,” he said, searching my eyes. “ _Gwynn_  is the name my mother gave me.”

_What a strange way to tell someone your name,_  I thought, smiling nonetheless. Gwynn ap Nuada returned it with a half-lidded gaze before speaking.

“And tell me further, Edric ap Forester, is the Hurdy-Gurdy a place where a man might wet his whistle, rest his bones, and seek . . . companionship for the night?”

“That, it is, Mr. ap Nuada.” I stood aside so he could see past me and through the batwing doors of the saloon. Inside, card games were starting up, drinks were being poured, Tully was wailing some old standard on the old piano with Miss Katherine belting out the lyrics in her brash voice, and Madam Maeve’s ladies were already making the rounds of the working men and visitors, like living, painted dolls.

“Hmm,” ap Nuada said again, squinting a little as he looked into the Hurdy-Gurdy’s lively atmosphere.

“The rooms and companionship are clean and friendly, and the regulars are even-tempered,” I added, and ap Nuada glanced at me, seeming amused.

“Not a lot of fights, then? Even when everyone’s in their cups?”

“Not even then. Madam Maeve runs a tight ship. No fighting allowed, unless the one who started it wants to be banned for six months.” I chuckled, thinking of Orlind Howe, banned for life for having the audacity to call Madam Maeve a “spavined, old whore” to her face. This was after she’d already banned him for the aforementioned six months for trying to pick a fight with Amel Reeve over Miss Winifred, one of the most popular of Madam Maeve’s ladies.

In the near two years since, Orlind Howe had become one of Reverend Goodlot’s most . . .  _zealous_  followers, missing no opportunity to start petitions or speak out against the Hurdy-Gurdy, calling it a blight on the town. He’d even started keeping company with the Reverend’s sister, Bertina (who, despite being pretty and well-mannered, was as mean as cat-dirt and just as batshit insane when it came to religion as her brother).

“Well,” ap Nuada said, startling me out of my thoughts. “Sounds like as good a place as any to wait out the long hours of the night. Take y’self elsewhere,” he said, shrugging the shoulder with the owl on it. And the owl, neither large nor small, but still quite solid-looking, opened its eyes and launched itself off ap Nuada’s shoulder easily. At ap Nuada’s heel, the hound stood and barked once, looking up at his master, who was watching their winged friend fly off in the direction of the Wilderness with an emotion on his face I’d not expected to see: wistful envy.

Then he was turning that calm, dark gaze back to me.

“Much obliged, Edric,” he said, tipping his hat politely. This time I nodded, refraining from bowing again as ap Nuada stepped past me and into the Hurdy-Gurdy, his white hound at his heels.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt(s): Gwynn ap Nudd. I borrowed heavily from themes in Stephen King’s The Gunslinger for this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See archive warnings

I finished my sweeping in record time and hurried inside to see how ap Nuada was fitting in at the Hurdy-Gurdy.

At first, when I stepped into the brightness of the common room, I didn’t see him anywhere. But a second, more careful look around showed him sitting in the darkest corner the Hurdy-Gurdy had to offer—which wasn’t very.

I must’ve been staring, for his eyes, formerly on Tully and Miss Katherine, playing and singing  _Love, Careless Love,_  respectively, drifted to mine and he smiled that lazy smile, raising his glass of whiskey in a silent toast. Blushing, I smiled and waved, then turned to hurry to the kitchen—where I helped with the cooking, dishwashing, and running out of orders—nearly knocking down Miss Millie as I did so.

“Watch where you’re goin’,” she barked, her glare and rough words at odds with her perfectly made-up doll’s face. Miss Millie hasn’t liked me since we were both fourteen, despite us having been best friends up to that point. Now, three years later, that dislike had turned into near hatred, from the way she treated me. It’d really worsened since she started working for Madam Maeve, in spite of her mother’s—Miss Katherine’s—objections. I had no idea what I had done . . . or what she  _thought_  I had done, to make her hate me.

“Sorry, Miss Millie,” I mumbled, sidling past her, trying not to wither under her potent glare—she’s like a miniature of Miss Katherine, whose glare could all but light a body on fire—as I held my broom in front of me like a shield.

A few seconds later, at the kitchen door, I glanced back to see if Miss Millie was still glaring at me. She wasn’t, however. No, she was sitting her pretty self in ap Nuada’s lap and wrapping her arms around his neck. Ap Nuada appeared to be demurring to her unsubtle overtures politely, but firmly. I could hear her loud, brash laugh even over the sounds of Tully and Miss Katherine beating the hell out of  _Love, Careless Love._

When Miss Millie coquettishly took off ap Nuada’s hat, revealing close-cropped, tightly-curled black hair, ap Nuada seemed to freeze, his amused and bemused smile turning cold. Under the table ap Nuada’s hound even sat up, hackles raised and teeth bared. I couldn’t hear the growl from that distance, but I could sense it.

As if sensing  _she’d_  gone too far—and Miss Millie was about as sensitive to the feelings of others as her mother, which is to say  _not at all_ —Miss Millie laughed again and quickly put the hat back on ap Nuada’s head, even adjusting it to a jaunty angle.

Ap Nuada quite disdainfully pushed Miss Millie off his lap and said something to her that made  _her_  freeze and draw back from him. Then ap Nuada’s eyes drifted to me again, where I stood, half-in and half-out of the kitchen doorway. He nodded in my direction, and Miss Millie, stiff and offended, turned to look at me, as well. Her glare was even harsher, this time.

I took that as my cue to disappear into the kitchen all the way.

*

I’d been chopping vegetables for a few minutes, mulling over what had just happened while trying to pay enough attention to work that I didn’t chop off a digit, when the kitchen door opened and Miss Millie, looking constipated and miserable, stuck her head in.

“Madam Maeve wants you,” she said, looking everywhere, but at me—indeed, I wasn’t sure she was  _talking_  to me, but she wasn’t looking at Cook or Lucille, either. So I stopped chopping and put down my knife.

“You mean me?”

“Who else would I mean, idiot?” Miss Millie said, glancing briefly at me, her eyes angry and almost . . . hurt. She’d always called me an idiot, but once upon a time, it was with fond impatience for my occasional slowness on the uptake. For  _she’d_  always been smart as a whip, and quick with it, too. Never did two such disparate personalities come together in friendship, it seemed.

For as long as it had lasted, anyway.

“Am I in trouble?” I asked her hesitantly, and Miss Millie snorted.

“I’m not your lackey! I don’t concern myself with whether or not  _you_  are in trouble!”

I sighed as Miss Millie ducked back out of the kitchen. Now wasn’t the time for staring in puzzlement at burnt bridges. Madam Maeve was waiting.

*

“Come in,” was the immediate reply to my knock, and I let myself into Madam Maeve’s office.

It wasn’t large, and it mostly taken up with Madam Maeve’s huge wooden desk. There were two chairs, the one I sat myself in and the one occupied by Madam Maeve.

She smiled as I sat and tried not to fidget under her gaze. Like ap Nuada, her gaze was calm and amused—with occasional glints of graveness—though not nearly so dark. Her eyes were a shade of grey so striking, they appeared to be silver. They always unnerved me, despite seeing those same eyes—only slightly darker in shade—in the mirror every morning.

“How are you today, Edric?” Madam Maeve asked, and I flushed.

“Well, ma’am,” I said quietly, and Madam Maeve nodded once, seeming pleased. Far too pleased for me to be in trouble, but sometimes one could never tell with adults.

“Good. Have you completed most of your evening chores?”

“Yes, ma’am. I was just helping cook and Lucille in the kitchen when Miss Millie said you wanted to see me.”

“Yes. About that.” Madam Maeve sighed and smiled again. “Edric . . . tell me . . . have you ever lain with anyone?”

Surprised at this turn in the conversation, I stammered out the truth: “Ah, n-no, ma’am! That is—I would  _n-never_  take liberties with your ladies!”

That smile turned wistful, and Madam Maeve straightened some papers on her desk. “I know you wouldn’t, Edric. You’re a good lad. An _honest_  one. But I meant have you ever lain with anyone  _ever_? Even someone who wasn’t one of my ladies?”

My blush burned like fire under my skin. “No, ma’am.”

“Hmm.” Madam Maeve tapped her lips with one finger and regarded me almost grimly. “And to which do your inclinations lay: women or men?”

Uncomfortable and unhappily, I answered: “Men, I suppose.”

“You suppose?” Her eyebrows lifted toward her widow’s peak, which seemed more pronounced for the fact that she had her hair pulled back into a severe auburn ponytail.

“Well . . . I think women are pretty and I like them, but I don’t—I can’t—” I was unable to think of a delicate way to explain to Madam Maeve that I’d never once touched myself while thinking of a girl. “I just prefer . . . men.”

“I see,” Madam Maeve said, tapping her lips again. “And  _why_  do you prefer men? Is it because, after a lifetime spent among women, you’re simply weary of them?”

“No!” I blurted out, laughing, some of my tension flowing out of me. Whatever was going on here, I wasn’t in trouble, or Madam Maeve wouldn’t be making jokes. “It’s not that, it’s just . . . when I imagine kissing someone or touching them, the person I imagine is always male. And always has been, since I became interested in such things. I don’t know why that’s so, it just . . .  _is_.”

“I see,” Madam Maeve said again, seeming a bit troubled, now. “So you’ve never lain with a man, nor even kissed one?”

I was back to blushing. “No, ma’am.”

“For lack of offers or lack of suitable partners?”

My mouth pursed and I looked down at my hands, folded in my lap. “Both. Lack of offers from suitable partners.” Though I thought of the time when, drunk and barely able to stand, the very handsome, but very much engaged Vern Hamish had tried to grope me as I helped him up to one of the small room’s Madam Maeve kept ready for those too inebriated to make their way home, but who didn’t desire companionship for the night.

“You ainna a girl, so you mus’ be free,” Vern had decided, one feverish-hot, sweaty hand squeezing my ass the other pawing at my fly. _Oh, Lord,_  I remember thinking as I let us into his room. Vern had let go of me and staggered toward the narrow pallet, falling onto it in the loose-limbed way of the drunk and grinning up at me. He began rubbing himself through his jeans before fumbling at his own fly. “Wan’ me to fuck you inna nex’ Tuesday?”

“I—I have to go,” I’d said, backing out of the room, hands held up as if in placation. I’d pulled the door shut and held onto the knob, my mind whirling, until, a few minutes later, I’d heard loud, deep snores coming from behind it.

Three days later, Vern was a married man and whenever he saw me on the street or in the saloon, he turned fuschia and avoided my eyes. . . .

“You’re not at all a bad looking boy,” Madam Maeve said, banishing that confusing memory and startling me out of my thoughts. Somehow she’d managed to get up and out from behind her desk, and come to stand in front of me without me so much as noticing. She tilted my head up with two fingers under my chin. “Not bad looking at all.”

“I—I’m plain, ma’am. That much, I know.” I shrugged. I’d long ago made peace with the fact that I’d never be handsome.

“Who says?” Madam Maeve’s fingers drifted up to my cheek before drifting away altogether. Looking up into her regal, striking face—not pretty, no, too strong-featured to be  _that_ , but beautiful in their own exotic way—a face I’d not inherited, my eyes quite aside, I sighed.

“Miss Katherine. Miss Millie.” Though only the latter had said it in a way calculated to hurt. The former had just said it as a mere statement of fact, with no more weight than sunlight.

Madam Maeve snorted again. “Katherine and Millie aren’t nearly as smart as they think they are, nor do they see as much as they think they see. Or at all, if they can call  _you plain_. You’re quite an attractive young man, and your even temperament only adds to your charm.” She brushed my fine, russet-brown hair back off my forehead and looked into my eyes. “At any rate, I didn’t call you in here to stoke the fires of vanity in you, Edric. I called you in here because someone has requested you for the evening.”

I blinked. “Requested me for what?” I asked blankly, then my eyes widened as I realized what she meant—what all those questions had been leading up to. “ _Me_?”

“Yes, Edric,” Madam Maeve said gently. She leaned back on the edge of her desk and regarded me somberly. “This is an opportunity for you, for several reasons. And you’re of age. Of course, the decision is entirely yours. I will not force you to do this or keep you from doing it, should you desire to. If you  _did_  choose to do it, I would ask that you abide by house rules and sign a one-time only contract that stipulates, among other things, that fifteen percent of your take comes to the Hurdy-Gurdy in exchange for a room in which to hold the proceedings, etc.”

My head was spinning with all this information. I didn’t know what to say or what to do.

“Wh-who asked for me?” I exhaled through numb lips. Madam Maeve heaved a sigh.

“Mr. ap Nuada, the gentleman just in from the Wilderness,” she said so quietly I could barely hear her.

I was surprised and somehow . . . not.

I shook my head and looked down at my hands. “Did he say why?”

“He only requested you by name, Edric. Clearly you impressed him, whatever passed between you.”

“Only idle chit-chat,” I reassured Madam Maeve. “I’m neither funny like Miss Jenny, nor witty like Miss Millie. I can’t imagine why he’d want me.”

Madam Maeve laughed suddenly, and stood up again. “My dear,” she said fondly. “What you don’t know about men could fill the Great Wilderness to overflowing.”

I blushed, but did not resist when she took my hands and bid me stand with a gentle tug to them. When I did, she looked me up and down critically.

“You’ve grown well,” she noted. “Filled out quite nicely: lean, but not  _too_  lean; good height; broad shoulders; nicely-shaped limbs. Excellent. He shall find you quite agreeable.” Her gaze ticked to mine. “That is, if you wish to make yourself available.”

Again, I didn’t know what to say. I closed my eyes and pictured ap Nuada giving me that slow, lazy smile. I wondered what it’d be like to taste that smile—if it’d taste like bittersweet smoke and whiskey. I imagined his hands running down my back, then groping my backside the way Vern had, and if it’d feel good—which it hadn’t when Vern did it—or if I’d go screaming in the opposite direction.

I thought of his low, musical voice hitching my name in my ear as he put his back into tumbling me. . . .

I shivered and opened my eyes, meeting Madam Maeve’s, holding them, in the hopes she didn’t look down and see me starting to tent out my jeans.

I’d made up my mind, and despite my nerves and fear—I knew it’d be strange and that it’d  _hurt_ , but I felt certain I could handle it, unless ap Nuada turned out to be some sort of sadist—I was as firmly sure about this decision as if I’d made it a long time ago.

And Madam Maeve must have seen it in my eyes or my face, for she smiled, once more wistfully—and a bit sadly—and said: “Come. Let’s get you prepared.”


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt(s): Gwynn ap Nudd. I borrowed heavily from themes in Stephen King’s The Gunslinger for this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See archive warnings.

“Um. Hullo, again.”

“Hello,” ap Nuada said, seeming amused. He’d watched me cross the room from down the main staircase. I’d faltered and nearly fallen down the last five steps, but caught myself before I went tumbling tail over tea kettle.

I wasn’t used to the nice shoes Madam Maeve had found for me—the kind of shoes one wears to a dance, rather than to church—and they were a touch too big, hence me nearly falling and breaking my leg.

The outfit she’d found for me was a bit out of fashion, even for the Borderlands and Settlements, and included one sharply-pressed white shirt that was very slightly too large, tan trousers that fit as if they’d been bespoke for me, a matching vest that fit just as well, a burgundy dinner jacket that was big on me—but not noticeably, like the shirt—and finally a burgundy silk cravat with gold edging.

And the make-up I wore was courtesy of Madam Maeve herself. She’d worked quickly and lightly, claiming my face didn’t need “lots of painting up” like Miss Katherine’s or Miss Millie’s. I’d smiled, and nearly laughed, and Madam Maeve’s mouth had twitched a little, too, but she’d then cleared her throat and told me to hold still or she’d not be responsible for the mess I’d appear as a result.

When she’d finished, she’d brought me to her mirror—the one in her bedroom, a place few got to see, these days, since she’d taken over for the old Madam, Madam Celine—and watched me gape at myself as if at a stranger. One who was . . . quite beautiful in a strong-featured, regal way. His silver-grey eyes, lined with kohl, but not garishly, seemed to sparkle intensely, entrancingly. His russet hair, usually tied back in a ponytail, had been brushed out and arranged around his face like a thick curtain, shining and sleek.

This elegantly coiffured and dressed man—not a boy, as I still felt myself, but a  _man_ —had gaped back at me, his wide eyes growing wider by the second, till it seemed they must fall out.

Finally, Madam Maeve had chuckled. “Time wastes, Edric. Ap Nuada has been waiting for long enough.” And with that, she’d ushered me not to the back staircase, but to the front, which led directly into the common room.

“You’ll do fine, lad,” she said, hanging back just out of sight of the commons. “Just remember to relax, and that yes, it  _will_  hurt at first. But once that hurt passes, once you’ve got into the rhythm of it, your body will know what to do to please both you, and ap Nuada.”

“But I  _don’t_  know what I’m doing, and neither does my stupid body! What if I mess it up?” I asked, suddenly nervous, my palms sweating as I stared down into the common room. I could just make out ap Nuada’s legs—the hound sleeping at his feet—but the rest of him was lost behind the curve of the arched entryway.

Madam Maeve smiled that wistful smile again. “You’ve already charmed him, all unwitting, and won his regard. That is no small coup. There’s no way you can . . . mess this up. You are a  _Connacht_ , as well as a Forester. Enchantment and intrigue are in your very blood.”

I thought that over. Madam Maeve rarely spoke of our family—would not speak much of my parents or where they were from—but in that moment, my heart trip-hammering, that tidbit dropped didn’t tempt me into further questions about our family. I had other, bigger fish to fry. “But won’t he be expecting me to . . . to  _know_  how to please a man?”

“I doubt it, my dear. No offense, but your innocence declares itself with every word and gesture. One expects of you many things, but the knowledge and experience of a practiced whore is not one of them. Now, skedaddle.” Madam Maeve nodded to the stairs and I gulped, so anxious, I barely even noticed her use of the word  _whore_. She’d never said it before in my presence, preferring the term _ladies_  or  _female companionship._

Well, I wasn’t either, I supposed. But by the end of the night I’d be a whore, right enough.

I didn’t know whether that bothered me or not.

*

“So,” I said, smiling nervously at ap Nuada, who smoked and watched me. He’d stood up to pull out my chair for me, and I’d blushed, of course, stammering my thanks. “What brings you to our humble town, Mr. ap Nuada? Business or pleasure?”

He smiled, sweet smoke escaping from mouth and nostrils in thin ribbons. “A little of both,” he claimed, then added. “A pleasurable sort of business.”

“Ah.” I leaned back in my chair, linking my sweaty hands on the table and staring hard at them. “And how long, may I ask, were you out in the Wilderness?”

“For many years I’ve made my home in the . . .  _Wilderness_ , as you call it.” Ap Nuada leaned back in his chair, too, that curious look on his face. “And you, Edric Forester? For how long have you called this Border-town home?”

“All my life,” I said with a sigh. “Well,  _almost_  all my life. I came here as a babe in arms. I don’t know where we lived before that.”

‘“We’?” Those dark brows lifted and I glanced away again.

“Madam Maeve and I. She’s not from here, nor am I, though I have no memories of any other place. Perhaps we’re from back East, further into the Settled Lands,” I mused, and not for the first time. I’d used to spend hours with Miss Millie , when we were little, trying to imagine the place I was from. I could never quite do it. I’d never been anywhere but Delver’s Gulch, and on occasion to the few Settlements just east of it.

“I know where your Madam Maeve hails from, Edric ap Forester, and it’s not East,” ap Nuada murmured, and I was startled into looking at him full on for the first time since I’d stumbled my way back into the commons.

“Do you—have you met Madam Maeve before?”

Ap Nuada shrugged. “I knew her briefly when we were younger, before the first of her unfortunate husbands. She and my sister were . . . friendly rivals, of a sort.” He snorted. “At any rate, your Madam Maeve is, like I am, from the West.”

“Husbands?” I asked, my mind boggling at the thought of  _Madam Maeve_  being married. And more than once. Then I was fastening onto the rest of what he’d said. “ _West_  of the Borderlands? There’s nothing west of  _this_  town but the Wilderness.”

“Indeed,” ap Nuada said, lifting his glass and sipping his whiskey. Then he chuckled. “Where’re  _my_  manners? Would you like a whiskey, Edric?”

“I . . . I’ve never had whiskey. . . .” though I’d once sneaked some of Madam Maeve’s red wine with Miss Millie when we were ten. It’d been fun at first . . . till the vomiting had started. “I’m not certain—”

“Don’t wory. I won’t let you drink too much. Only just enough,” ap Nuada promised, signaling Rebecca, the barmaid, for another glass. I frowned.

“Just enough to  _what_?” I asked, and ap Nuada merely smiled and wouldn’t be drawn further on the subject.

*

Halfway through my first tumbler of Madam Maeve’s best whiskey, I was considerably more relaxed.

Taking my example from that of Miss Paulette—Madam Maeve’s most popular lady, despite her thin, almost plain looks (even with artfully applied make-up) and meek manner—I tried to focus the conversation, as we waited for dinner, on ap Nuada.

But his answers were brief, almost evasive, and told me nothing about him. He instead turned my very questions back on me, asking me about my life at Madam Maeve’s. I was chagrined, by the end of dinner, to realize I told him my life story in bits and pieces, and that by the time we’d finished our afters—both plates cleaned . . . Cook and Lucille were on their game, that night, and as usual—ap Nuada knew more about me than anyone. Myself included.

I’d found myself telling him things that only Miss Millie knew, and quite a few things she hadn’t known. I spoke of my time in school, and how Miss Millie—just  _Millie_  to me, back then—and I had been tormented and called “whore’s get” for most of our lives, me despite the fact that as far as Madam Maeve had told me, my mother had never been a whore. Back then, back before our peers simply chose to ignore us both, Millie and I had clung together, our bonds forged of a crucible I’d thought had made them unbreakable. We’d even used to talk about getting married when we were older, and running off to the great cities of the East to find a better life. She’d hoped to attend a Normal School and eventually teach. And I . . . well, I had no particular preferences as to a career. I wasn’t good enough at much of anything to consider it any of my studies or duties callings—unless one deigned to call being the fastest potato peeler in town an accomplishment.

“And this . . . Millie is the same lass who . . . greeted me earlier in the evening,” ap Nuada said, lighting another cigarette, which he’d rolled without me noticing. He took a deep drag off it, the cherry end making his dark eyes seem to flare and flicker, then offered it to me. I took it reluctantly—I’d never taken to smoking, though I could do it without coughing up my lungs.

“One and the same,” I replied, putting the cigarette to my lips and pulling off it lightly. The bittersweet smoke filled my lungs and I immediately felt a strange sensation—lassitude, almost—settle over me. I held the smoke in my lungs for a few moments before exhaling then offered the cigarette back to ap Nuada, who waved it off. So I took another drag, this one a bit less cautious, only for the lassitude to deepen, and a mild, not unpleasant throbbing to start in my head. “We were best friends, a long time ago. But now, she hates me.”

“Hmm.” Ap Nuada watched me with a small smile and I blushed, but only a little. I was growing used to him watching me, and as long as I didn’t think about what was to come later, I wasn’t too nervous.

“What?” I asked, when the amused staring went on a bit longer than what even I, in my inebriated and drugged state, could tolerate.

“Nothing. Only. . . .” and there ap Nuada let it hang for a few moments before chuckling. “Have you never stopped to consider why she seems to hate you, now?”

“ _Seems_  to?” I snorted. “And yes, I’ve wondered, but I can’t imagine why. I’ve done nothing to her that I know of, and certainly not on purpose.”

“Haven’t you, Edric ap Forester?” Ap Nuada tilted his head curiously. “Our greatest hatreds are born of our greatest loves, it is often said.”

I frowned and took another drag off the cigarette. It was already half-gone. “I don’t understand . . . if you love someone, why would you suddenly hate them?”

Ap Nuada shrugged with a casual grace I envied, even as a lion’s roar of sudden  _want_  flared within me, making my blood race and my body quicken. Blushing, I placed my cloth napkin in my lap.

“Perhaps because they do not love you back.”

“Of  _course_ , I loved her back—she was my best friend! My sister in all but blood!” I exclaimed a little louder than I’d meant to, then glanced around. A few heads had turned, including Miss Millie’s—she was frowning over at me and ap Nuada, her pretty face a study in misery. But she turned away when I looked at her and shifted so she was pressing closer to Reese Derwent. They appeared to be playing cribbage with Miss Edith and Jorian Naylor.

Miss Millie suddenly laughed brightly, and everyone at the table joined her. I felt a pang, such as I haven’t for a long time, and wondered what had happened to my best friend to cause her to despise me so. . . .

“I loved her,” I told ap Nuada, who was watching me keenly. “I still do, even though she stopped loving me.”

“Has she?”

“Yes!”

“Hmm,” ap Nuada said, turning his regard to Miss Millie. “When love turns in on itself, it can mimic hatred. But that doesn’t mean that it _is_  hatred.”

“You and I must have very different definitions of love,” I huffed, and ap Nuada shrugged again.

“Perhaps. But mark my words, Edric, that lass still loves you. More than she can bear, I’d say.” When he saw that surprise and incredulity had left me speechless, he went on. “It may well be that the problem is two-fold: She loves you too much and you love her not enough. Or at least not in the way she so clearly desires.”

I went to draw on the cigarette and saw that I’d smoked it away to practically nothing. “And what does  _that_  mean?”

“Merely what it means, no more, no less,” ap Nuada said dismissively, evasively. Then he smiled, and stood, offering me his hand. When I took it hesitantly, he pulled me to my feet. The room spun slightly, but not alarmingly. And despite the fact that I was on my feet, ap Nuada still held my hand. “I noticed two benches outside of the saloon. Come, young Master Edric, and take the night air with me.”

“Alright,” I said, blushing, and glancing once more at Miss Millie, catching her in the act of turning her head. Had she been watching me again? Why? To report back to Madam Maeve? Or merely to gather more ammunition against me?

Then ap Nuada was drawing me with him, toward the doors and the waiting night air.


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt(s): Gwynn ap Nudd. I borrowed heavily from themes in Stephen King’s The Gunslinger for this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See archive warnings.

“The stars are so beautiful.”

It slipped out on a soft, sighing voice, and quite without my meaning it to. Ap Nuada, still holding my hand, squeezed it and pointed up almost directly above us. “See that one there, and the ones gathered around it?” I nodded. “That’s The Hunter . . . and there! That large cluster, there, is The Lovers. And closer to the horizon, is The Bear. . . .”

I followed his finger as he pointed out individual stars and whole constellations, till I happened to look over at my companion and that scalding  _want_  rolled through me, again, this time like a wave, rather than a lion’s roar. It ebbed and flowed with every beat of my anticipatory heart.

And I must have been staring for a while—I’d lost the thread of the astronomy lesson quite thoroughly—for ap Nuada looked over at me and smiled.

“The stars are not the only thing that is beautiful on this night,” he said, and I flushed and laughed.

“You’ve already paid for me, Mr. ap Nuada. You don’t have to turn my head with flattery.”

“It’s not flattery if it’s true,” he replied softly. “And please, call me  _Gwynn_.”

“ _Gwynn_ ,” I said tentatively, as if tasting the word, and he shivered, grinning.

“Long it has been since someone called me by my given name. To hear it said so sweetly is a gift I will keep close,” he whispered leaning slowly closer, till his eyes were nothing but a dark sparkle, and I could smell whiskey and smoke in dizzying profusion.

Then my eyes were closing as his lips pressed the corner of my mouth, chastely, gently. I made a soft, desperate sound, high in my throat, and Gwynn chuckled, turning his head just so that our lips met full-on. When his parted, his tongue lapping delicately at my own lips as if entreating entrance, I moaned again and bid him enter.

We kissed—him patiently teaching me what he liked and letting me emulate him until I felt confident enough to improvise—and laughed between kisses, until a howl went up from the Wilderness, somewhere distant, but still too close for my liking. Shuddering, I broke the kiss, my face gone up in flames.

Gwynn put two fingers under my chin and tilted my face up till I was looking him in the eye once more. His own eyes were dancing and possessive. “Perhaps we should continue in the room your Madam Maeve has so kindly provided for us?”

And suddenly the howling of whatever beastie was out haunting the tangle of forest that represented the nearest arm of the Wilderness was the least worrisome thing about the night.

“I—” I began and Gwynn smiled.

“I am aware that you’ve never lain with a man, or indeed anyone. I can see the innocence in your aura, and all but smell it on you, Edric.” Gwynn’s gaze gentled, became almost tender in spite of his customary amusement and this new possessiveness. “I cannot promise that I won’t hurt you, but I can promise to make it good for you in spite of the initial pain. To treat the taking of your innocence with the gravity and care that it deserves.”

I looked down again, at the wooden buttons of Gwynn’s faded shirt. “Madam Maeve told me what to do—how to go about preparing myself and how to make it g-good for  _you_.” I took a deep breath and met his eyes again. “I’ll do my best.”

Gwynn’s smile was warm and promising, and shinning from his dark face, his eyes were brighter than any stars that’d ever graced the heavens. He stood up, once more pulling me with him, this time into his arms and for another kiss that teased and tickled as his hands, large and hot, roamed under my borrowed jacket to rest at the small of my back and the curve of my behind. His body was hard against my own—harder, in some places, than others—and as hot as his hands.

We gazed into each other’s eyes for long minutes until the first drops from the sky surprised us into looking up. Thunderclouds, seemingly out of nowhere, had veiled the stars. Gwynn and I looked at each other, him shrugging, me shaking my head. Then Gwynn was sweeping me up in his arms and carrying me inside as if I weighed nothing—and just ahead of the deluge.

I clutched at him for dear life, afraid of being dropped, and stared back over his shoulder at the suddenly sheeting rain.

“How did you know—?” I began, meaning the sudden storm. Usually, around here, heavy storms like that take at least a couple hours to really get going, unlike further south in the Borderlands, where there are tornados and hurricanes. As it was, this immediate intensity was a bit frightening . . . and yet, thanks to Gwynn, we’d both only suffered the wetness of a few drops of it.

Gwynn carried me through the commons, past the ladies—Miss Millie included—who stared after us, and their gentlemen, who were instead staring out at the storm.

“It’s not hard to sense when a storm is coming—especially one so violent and . . . unusual,” Gwynn said, and I retrieved my attention from Miss Millie, who was staring at me as if stricken, equal parts rage and anguish written on her pretty, painted face.  _Gwynn_ ’s face was thoughtful, his eyes focused on the way ahead. “If we had the time, I could teach you.”

As he started us up the stairs, I stared into his eyes and smiled a little.

“There are other things you’ll be teaching me, tonight. Things I’ve been wanting to learn far more than I want to learn storm-sensing,” I said tentatively, and Gwynn grinned, both boyish and dancing.

At the top of the stairs, I directed Gwynn right, and to the bedroom that would be ours for the night, and he immediately took us there, his arms showing no signs of strain or shakiness.

When we reached the correct door, I indicated he should stop, and he did, kissing me lightly and leaning against the door. One of the arms holding me up let go briefly to turn the knob—I quickly grabbed on for dear life, once more—then Gwynn was carrying me over the threshold and into the room, kicking the door shut behind us.

When he let me out of the kiss, I panted for a few moments before looking around us at the opulent surroundings—the velvet drapes, the king-sized canopy bed, the carefully and evenly stained, matched wooden furniture, the Eastern-style rugs.

In the small, quaint breakfast nook sat another bottle of Madam Maeve’s finest whiskey, as well as assorted nibbles—fresh fruit, crackers, cheeses, biscuits, and the like—and place settings for two.

“This is the best room in the house,” I told Gwynn and he smiled wistfully, almost like Madam Maeve had.

“It is indeed a richly appointed suite. And yet, it is nothing as compared to the suite of rooms I would gift you, were you to come be a guest in my home.” Gwynn walked us to the bed and placed me gently down into its softness. That lion’s roar-desire was back with a vengeance, though it was leavened with nerves and fear.

“And wh-where exactly  _is_  your home?”

Gwynn’s smile turns absent. “I told you: my home is in the Wilderness. It has been for longer than you’ve been alive by many years.”

“But you don’t look that old,” I said, squinting up at him. He appeared to be in his thirties—or a very well-kept forty. But certainly no older than that. “And no one  _lives_  in the Wildnerness but wights and boggarts and beasties. People only go there seeking their fortunes, not to make a home. And more  _don’t_  come back than do. Why, the Wilderness is death or insanity to people who stay there for too long, and you’re  _not_  insane or dead.”

Gwynn laughed, a merry sound, but grim, too. “Truly? Am I not?”

I shuddered. “Well. You don’t  _seem_  to be either. Not that I’ve ever met anyone who was dead. But I’ve seen the raving men and women who come back from the Wilderness—faerie-touched, or so it’s said—jibbering about the things they’ve seen and spoken to. Telling stories of the Sluagh and the Sidhe, and the Wild Hunt. . . .”

Going stiff, Gwynn’s smile faded slowly. “What do you know of the Wild Hunt, Edric ap Forester?” he asked quietly, his voice low and ponderous.

“Well,” I began hesitantly, digging up the few coherent bits I remember the ragged, madmen and madwomen I’d witnessed shouting in the streets before the sheriff took them away. “They ride down out of the sky and collect the souls of the dying, and press them into service as riders in their ghostly caravan. And on the eve of wars and battles, they can be seen riding across the sky, toward the site of the conflict. And it is said that the warriors who look up on the eve of battle and see them will, the next evening, be riding with the Wild Hunt as it flies off to herald new wars and new battles.”

“Do they say so?” Gwynn murmured, looking off toward the window. Outside, the rain came down as if it’d never rained before, buckets and buckets of it. Yet there was no thunder and no lightning. But Gwynn stared and stared out into the dim, wet night broodingly, and for long minutes. Finally, I spoke.

“Have I said something wrong? Have I upset you?”

He was slow to turn away from the window, but turn away, he did, and bend a small smile my way. “Quite the opposite, Edric. You please me immensely,” he said quite warmly, leaning down to kiss me. I’d quite gotten the hang of kissing and being kissed, at that point, and gave as good as I got, even though on the inside I was as trembling and nervous as an orphaned fawn.

Gwynn eventually broke the kiss with several small, sweet kisses that left me moaning and following him in the hopes of more. But he sat on the bed and put restraining hands on my shoulders. His eyes were solemn.

“Are you certain this is what you wish, lad?” he asked me. Then he went on off my surely blank look. “I paid for your companionship, it’s true, but we don’t have to lie together. We don’t have to do anything you don’t wish to do. There are many kinds of companionship, and I value all of them equally.”

I flushed, looking away and licking my lips. They tasted of whiskey and bittersweet smoke. “I . . . I  _am_  nervous about l-laying with you, Gwynn . . . but if it’s something you want, then I would like to. I—I would like my first time to be with  _you_.”

Executing a courtly half-bow from his seated position, Gwynn said: “I am honored, then.”

And then he kissed me again, his gentle hands carefully removing my nice, but uncomfortable outfit piece by piece. When I was completely bared to him, shivering despite the warmth of the room, he smiled.

“You are lovely,” he whispered, and if I had cause to doubt his sincerity, that doubt was put to rest when he unbuckled his gun belts and I noticed again that he was visibly hard. I ached to  _touch_  him and have him touch  _me_ , and placed my hand squarely on the distended front of his jeans. I could feel the heat of him through the material and something within me . . . that lion’s roar, sounded again, heating my blood and making it all but impossible to think clearly. To think beyond my desire for him.

Gwynn hissed as I cupped and stroked him, his gun belts dropping to the floor with a heavy, laden  _thunk_. I smiled in the face of his arousal, stroking and squeezing, and whispered: “Lay with me.”

He reached out and caressed my face so, so softly. I leaned into his touch and undid his fly, snaking my hand into his jeans. He was hard, huge, and damp in my hand and I felt that nervous flutter in the pit of my stomach.

“I will make this good for you, Edric. This I swear on my life,” Gwynn said gravely, and I nodded, lying back in the fluffed pillows. Moments later, it seemed, he was naked—but for a necklace of some silvery metal that gleamed mellowly in the lamplight, and from which hung a pendant shaped like a tripartite leaf—all shining midnight skin and rippling muscle. He climbed into bed with me, gathering me into his arms for another kiss that overwhelmed me . . . till it felt as if I was drowning. And happily.

Wherever our skins touched seemed to hum and burn pleasantly, intensely, and when Gwynn’s hand slid up my thigh to take me in hand, I moaned again, long and loud.

No one had ever touched me that way before, and I didn’t care, in that moment, if anyone else ever would, for nothing, surely  _nothing_ could be better than Gwynn ap Nuada’s hand on me.

_Madam Maeve was right,_  I thought as Gwynn rolled us over, so that he was on top of me, still kissing me, and pushing his hardness against my own. I wrapped my arms around his neck and one leg around his thighs, and bucked up against him, until we fell into a rhythm of thrusts and grunts, hisses and groans.  _My body_ does _know what to do . . . and so does_  his.

Then, swept up in the hum and burn, the heat and the intensity, I wasn’t thinking much of anything anymore, nor for many hours, thereafter.


End file.
